October, 2006

Why wait go ahead and download from here. It is for all the versions of Windows XP with service Pack 2.

Enjoy the power of digital media and give us feedback.

Namoskar

I could not find myself better than this paragraph “Why do we buy software? Is it so we can have the joy of owning servers, doing backups, patches and maintenance? Of course not! We buy software to get things done. We want to use the services it provides and frankly if we could let someone else manage the headaches all the better. This is the brave new world of software as a service. Sounds great - but does this new way of using software introduce new challenges for the consumer and provider? What are these challenges and what do you need to know about them? Fred Chong and Gianpaolo Carraro are two really smart colleagues of mine who have been thinking about these questions and are here to bring you answers so check it out!” (quoted from http://www.skyscrapr.net/blogs/arcasts/archive/2006/07/18/232.aspx)

We have great article on Multi-Tenant Data Architecture published in MSDN written by Frederick Chong, Gianpaolo Carraro, and Roger Wolter. For more interesting reading please refer to http://msdn.microsoft.com/architecture/saas/default.aspx?pull=/library/en-us/dnbda/html/MlttntDA.asp#mlttntda_topic2

Think again!!

Namoskar

This week it is very auspicious week in India. The whole country celebrates the festival of light called “Diwali”. Great gift from Microsoft is Internet Explorer 7 in this eve.

The download is available at http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/downloads/default.mspx

Great to have features like Tab, Print option, RSS, Security, Live.com search integration and many more.

I am using IE 7 from its beta days and like the awesome eye soothing effects.

Let’s enjoy.

Namoskar and Happy Diwali

LINQ comes with the OfType<T> query operator, through which we can filter the required object type from a heterogeneous array.

Suppose below is the scenario where we have array with various types but will only retrieve the string type. Here we go with ease of life,

using System;

using System.Collections.Generic;

using System.Text;

using System.Query;

using System.Xml.XLinq;

using System.Data.DLinq;

namespace LINQConsoleApplication1_Oct11

{

    class Program

    {

        static void Main(string[] args)

        {

            object[] numbers = {"Wriju", 28, 12/12/2006, 3.3f, 1, "Tupur", 8.0};

            var strs = numbers.OfType<string>();

            Console.WriteLine("The list of friends..");

            Console.WriteLine("==========================");

            foreach(var s in strs)

            {

                Console.WriteLine(s);

            }

            Console.ReadKey();

        }

    }

}

Output will look like

Namoskar

I was going through the document on LINQ Project Overview then got interested to an example there at page 14. The amazing feature of GroupBy, programming will become the communication language one I am sure. We will have lingo, dialects, accent etc. I am excited to share the logic mentioned there (commented for better understanding)

 Assume that you have an array containing the names. You are not sure the length of the names. You have given assignment to provide output that will show the names with equal length together. Hummm LINQ the easy approach of life,

using System;

using System.Collections.Generic;

using System.Text;

using System.Query;

using System.Xml.XLinq;

using System.Data.DLinq;

namespace LINQConsoleApplication1_Oct10

{

    class Program

    {

        static void Main(string[] args)

        {

            //Declare the String Array

            string[] names = {"Albert", "Burke", "Connor", "David",

                "Everett", "Frank", "George", "Harris"};

            //Defining the GroupBy logic (here it is lengthwise)

            var groups = names.GroupBy(s => s.Length);

            //Iterate through the collection created by the Grouping

            foreach(IGrouping<int, string> group in groups)

            {

                //Branch on the condition decided

                Console.WriteLine("Strings of Length {0}", group.Key);

                //Actual results

                foreach(string value in group)

                    Console.WriteLine(" {0}", value);

            }

            Console.ReadKey();

        }

    }

}

Output will look like

Namoskar

A, B, C, C++,……, C# yes it is long and exiting journey of small but passionate world of languages (spoken by quite and intelligent people). Yes I am talking about the next generation of programming language F# (pronounced “FSharp”). Many words to say about it OOPS/functional/scripted etc etc.

Why not try it with Visual Studio / .NET Framework, in this weekend go ahead and download from Microsoft Research

http://research.microsoft.com/research/downloads/Details/A4AEE11A-3154-466E-9F89-E1E8D3D40A56/Details.aspx

Lets do it.

Namoskar

No more NDoc now use Sandcastle the documentation compilers which enables managed class library developers throughout the world to easily create accurate, informative documentation with a common look and feel. For additional Sandcastle information, visit the Sandcastle blog. [referenced from Sandcastle WiKi site]

Information on Sandcastle WiKi site

• Where to get Sandcastle
• Sandcastle GUIs
• Scripts and Automation
• Sandcastle Tips and Tricks
• Sandcastle FAQs
• Sandcastle Questions

Namoskar

Want to have a glimpse of Orcas – the next generation of Visual Studio with features which you never thought of. Then go and follow the instruction and enjoy

Visual Studio Code Name "Orcas" - September Community Technology Preview (CTP)

Namoskar

Applies to: ASP.NET 2.0

ASP.NET 2.0 comes with set of very rich navigation controls like TreeView, Menu, SiteMapPath. Ideally these controls should load the values at runtime from any structured data sources, be it SQL or XML or TXT. The default and most commonly used provider is XmlSiteMapProvider which accepts the data from XML file. But if you have to load different XML files at runtime, then … Here we go

Create two web.sitemap files

File 1 [web.sitemap]

=============

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>

<siteMap>

      <siteMapNode title="MyMenu 1" url="Default.aspx">          

      </siteMapNode>

</siteMap>

File 1 [web2.sitemap]

==============

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>

<siteMap>

  <siteMapNode title="MyMenu 2" url="Default.aspx">

  </siteMapNode>

</siteMap>

Then put any navigation control in your aspx page with the SiteMapDataSource as data source.

The main trick is with the web.config settings. There you have to mention all the files as the provider collection like

<?xml version="1.0"?>

<configuration>  

      <system.web>

            ………

            <siteMap defaultProvider="1SiteMap" enabled="true">

                  <providers>

                        <add name="1SiteMap" type="System.Web.XmlSiteMapProvider" siteMapFile="Web.sitemap"/>

                        <add name="2SiteMap" type="System.Web.XmlSiteMapProvider" siteMapFile="Web2.sitemap"/>

                  </providers>

            </siteMap>

      </system.web>

Then in the page load event of your page (where the SiteMapDataSource and navigation controls are) change the property SiteMapProvider like

protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)

    {

        //The provider name mentioned in the web.config

        SiteMapDataSource1.SiteMapProvider = "2SiteMap";

    }

Hope this will help in simpler way, but it is recommended that you should use SqlSiteMapProvider for all dynamic scenarios.

Ref: http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2005/11/20/431019.aspx

Namoskar